(WHTM) – Kathy Boockvar may be the most controversial secretary of the Commonwealth in history. She resigned in 2021 when her department botched a constitutional amendment that would’ve helped sex abuse survivors and she oversaw the turbulent 2020 election.

She tells abc27, that election integrity is now her top priority with the 2020 election seared into her brain.

“The lack of patriotism, the efforts to actually overturn the votes of millions and millions of Pennsylvanians and Americans across this country, it was it was pretty devastating, as an American, as a Pennsylvania and as secretary of state,” said Boockvar.

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This Week in Pennsylvania

An experience that led her to start Athena Strategies, and consult on election security.

“Everything from protection of election officials to making sure that voters understand how elections work,” said Boockvar.

Republicans scoff at Boockvar consulting on elections. They call the 2020 election that she oversaw a disaster and blame her for constantly changing the rules like allowing drop boxes, not in the law, to allowing mail-ins to be counted three days after the election, also unprecedented and partisan. Republicans believe the mail votes are partisan because they believe the lion’s share of those mail-ins are Democratic votes.

Boockvar said, “Let me ask you this. Why were more Democrats voting by mail? I can tell you why. It’s because President Trump and the Republican leaders told people not to vote by mail. They told their people not to.”

Boockvar says that 2018 saw new voting machines, 2019 a new law that overhauled the system, and in 2020, a pandemic. A perfect storm for election officials. And she argues most of those changes were prompted by court decisions.

She said, “That’s the problem is if the litigation is flying fast and furious, you have no choice. Right?”

The election process is secure, Boockvar says. The danger? Intentionally sowing seeds of doubt in bitterly partisan times.

“The more that we are spreading disinformation, it’s threatening our election officials, the more we are doing the bidding of our overseas adversaries because they thrive on our instability. So this is a national security issue, like, this is serious,” says Boockvar.

But the 2020 election was not the biggest issue of Boockvar’s tenure. Her Department of State failed to properly advertise a constitutional amendment that would’ve given survivors of childhood sexual abuse the right to sue their alleged abusers.

The amendment was taken off the ballot and has yet to be passed by lawmakers.

“It was devastating, it was devastating,” Boockvar said this week, “and my heart, my heart, it was awful. My heart goes out to all of them for the delay.”

An office of the State Inspector General found the issue to have been human error and better processes are now in place to catch such mistakes.

“There were only bad choices here,” Boockvar said, “and offering my resignation was the best of all bad options. I knew if I didn’t do that it was going to distract from the important work that needed to be done.”

Boockvar still says passing the amendment still “should’ve already happened” and is the “easiest thing in the world.”

Now with the 2024 election coming into view, Boockvar says if you are concerned you should volunteer as a poll worker and/or do your homework on the candidates.

She also warned of bad actors attempting to affect the results of the election and new technologies like artificial intelligence.

“If you see a picture of a fire in a polling place, is it real or is it AI? If you see or hear a video of a candidate speaking, is it real or is it AI? And that could influence, that could get people to stay home.”

Boockvar says her advice is to assume everything you see is AI and then “work to actually confirm the truth.”

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